I just moved to Beijing from Shanghai for half a year. To someone who knows me well, I am the kind of person who pays attention to my hair. So the first thing I did after I moved to a new apartment was to compare as many hair salons/hair salons as I can to find the best one. Luckily, I found a hair salon called Mr. Joker Men’s hair salon.
A photo of Mr. Joker Men's hair salonIt is a hair salon that only serves male customers and this “man only” type of hair salon is not common even in Beijing and Shanghai, the biggest cities of China. However, the customers of the common hair salon include male and female customers. When you walk into this hair salon, it is so easy to tell it is different from the common barber shop which we usually go to because of the decoration style. It is painted with green color and the barber table is stuck with anime characters from the Slam Dunk cartoon and other anime series which usually the male love to watch.Imaging myself as the founder of this shop, I think it is not easy to cut off more than half the cake to focus only on the niche market since, generally speaking, females spend more money on haircuts than males. But thinking from the other side, the founder may have to make this choice because of the vast similar competitors.According to the words from my barber, this hair salon runs well these years and he is happy to work here instead of at the common one. I got interested and asked him why he loves working there. He said because he can really focus on his work and doesn’t need to deal with other things such as everyday morning meetings.When he mentioned the hair salon morning meeting, it immediately triggers my memory. It is so common in my country and I think almost everyone has seen it. Every morning, the manager will call all staff to stand in front of the hair salon in the form of several lines. There are two things they usually do. Firstly, the manager recap of yesterday’s work and tell staff what did well and what did badly. The second is that all the staff will together shout out these words with passion along with the manager “Jiayou! Jiayou! Jiayou”(Jiayou means Keep it up) and “Nuli! Nuli! Nuli”(Nuli means Work hard). After that, they will start their work. The reason why I still remember this is because it is so funny when we heard shouting. I get super interested in why they don’t have this morning meeting since almost all the common hair salons do this. It is a kind of fixed routine. Business-wise, the only difference is just the customers they serve. The service they provided to customers is still the same. So I asked my barber but he can’t really answer me.
Why fixed morning meetings disappear?
There must be a reason behind it. After getting more info and analysis, I finally get the point of why they don’t have that. It is because they don’t NEED it.Here, we call the common hair salon type A and the male-only hair salon type B. Since the service they provide is the same and the only difference between A and B is that B doesn’t have female customers. Our analysis can start from here. Service-wise, they usually provide cutting, dyeing, and perming hair service. But to B, most of the male frequent needs are haircuts. So naturally haircuts become the main service they provide. However, female customers have much more needs for hair coloring, hair perming, and straightening. Hence women spend more than twice as much as men on hair-related expenses. So hair salon A usually have to focus on these services because they can generate more income compared to the haircut. However, the process of some service such as hair coloring and perming is much more complex than a haircut and take much longer time. For example, When perming hair, after rolling the customer’s hair with perm paper, they need to be placed under a heater and wait for a period of time like an hour. Apart from that, usually, the female has longer hair than the male which make the process more complex and the service time longer.Because of the long waiting time and complex needs coming from the customers, it is hard to make one barber take care of one customer from beginning to end. So managers commonly make specialized people do specialized tasks. For example, during the waiting time, the manager usually wants the barber to give a haircut to others instead of waiting there. So to higher efficiency, type A has to divide and allocate the work to different types of staff. There are specialized staves for welcoming guests, washing hair, and cutting hair, with a clear division of labor. It makes the hair salon looks like a factory. Different types of staff work together to serve a customer.However, for type B, most customers’ needs are haircuts, the process is short and simple, and don’t need to wait. A barber can take care of everything and make efficient of their time. Hence to type B, they make one barber cover one customer, and the barber is the only type of staff in the hair salon.In this case, we can find that in B the performance of the barber is the only thing that influences the satisfaction of the customer because the barber takes care of everything. If you serve the customer well, they will be happy and come to you again. But it is different to type A since the service is provided by different staff, and the outcome of the service is related to various types of staff. This brings two effects. One is that if a certain step goes wrong, it can lead to a bad final result. The second is that collaboration between different types of staff is important. So a person who only takes one responsibility may don’t whether doing it good or bad because they still can get the money, for example, based on how many heads he washed and he doesn’t care so much about the final result. Hence, to make the service runs smoothly, the manager needs to make sure everyone does their role well and breaks the walls of collaboration. It is a management problem. Based on that, considering efficiency, a meeting to gather people together is a common-used approach where managers can share the best practice and bad practices and bring out the ways to improve the bad practices. Just because of that, now we know why type A hair salons need the morning meeting and why they need to shout out positive words because the manager wants to cheer them up.
What is “Transplanted Innovation”?
In this case, it's important to note that even within the same industry and providing the same service, minor adjustments such as changes in customer segments can have a significant impact. If people still apply all the things they get from type A to type B, B either will waste time or money, or even fail.Now, let’s take this thought to the innovation field.As we all know, currently the world is vastly changing. Innovation quickly happens around us. Now we are in the digitalization time, there are so many great innovations happening in the digitalization field. We are surprised at the great innovation they do and appreciate the new perspective they bring to us.Instead of just watching and admiring, we tend to “copy” from the successful innovation. It is natural to learn from others’ practice, we as a human have the natural habit to do it that way. Also, it is smart to do like this since it has already been proven right in some contexts. We have the thought that If you can do such innovation in this field, why I can’t do it in my field?For example, we know Uber is a platform where we can match passengers and drivers and Airbnb is a platform where match travelers and apartment hosts. After these two service business went successful, they are many appearing services similar to those two to create the platform to match two parties together.In the context of business innovation, the act of applying a successful innovation from one business to another can be referred to as “transplanted innovation”. It is a common practice among companies. When the CEO, the strategist, or the innovation team heard the new innovation news, they will get excited at once and start to transplant the innovation pattern in their context. What will happen next is preparing the PPT, and reporting to their leader, and leaders getting excited also because they also heard the innovation and they know the company is now in a dilemma and it really needs a road to increase the revenue or even save the company. Then the company starts to form a team and invest money into the “promising” and “risk-free” business without changing anything.
Don’t let the excitement carry you away
For innovation, seeing is believing rules can also be applied here.Transplanted innovation is not like creating a new type of innovation. When people see a new innovation of which pattern they have never heard, they tend to question it, challenge it and doubt the future. The reason is so simple which is they haven’t seen it elsewhere. In contrast, since people already see it, even if it is in another field, they tend to believe the thing will happen just like the company that already launch this innovation. What they need to do is just follow all the things from that company. Their thought is if we do the same, we will become the same success. But from the hair salon case we know, small adjustments make great changes, not to mention the business context is different. Just following the other company doesn’t guarantee success at all and the risk itself is still high.Here is an example. When businesses like Uber and Airbnb are proven right, experts summarize it as “Co-Sharing Economy”. Then there are many similar (at least sounds similar) services emerging like Wework. In China, we have a co-sharing bike company called Mobike and a co-sharing power bank company called Energy Monster. They are trying to create a platform and connect two parties just as Uber does. But we when look deeper into the essence of these businesses by overlooking the category which is given by the market, we find these businesses are so different, and the focus of their business is also totally different. If they run it in the same way, the only outcome they can have is failure. For example, in the beginning, we thought Wework is a co-sharing service company, but if you compare Uber, Airbnb, and Wework, you will find out Uber and Airbnb company they don’t own tangible assets like apartments or buildings and the vehicles belong to the drivers and apartments owned by hosts. Their resources and investment are mainly to make the platform itself. But to Wework, they have to rent the building and buy a lot of furniture and redecorate the whole building/office. It is a huge investment and has to be input in the beginning, however, Uber and Airbnb don’t need it. WeWork company and their investors found that they have invested too much in the office rental which creates many difficulties.For Mobike, in the beginning, people think it is so like the Uber model. But the company find out they can’t just use other people’s bikes. They have to design a bike and find the manufacturer to produce them all by themselves. Again, this work didn’t come to Uber, at least not in the beginning.Here I just list two apparent differences and you may also feel that if the whole context is different, they are many more factors you need to consider. The users are different, the resources are different. These differences will be connected and influence each other. Accordingly, your decision and choice will also be vastly different. In this case, if you just have this transplanted innovation, you can be excited but don’t get too carried away. You need to be very careful because the failure of these transplanted innovations may be waiting for you in the coming future.
What should we do?
So what we can do when we have transplanted innovation?Still, we can welcome this type of innovation. Based on the above discussion, the thing that we need to do is self-evident. When we have transplanted innovation, don’t get too carried away, chill yourself. Then calling your teammates to work collaboratively to question what you change in the transplanted innovation compared to the original innovation according to your specific business context like the targeted customers, the positioned market, the areas of spending money, and the way of gaining revenue.Here is a toolkit I create that you can use to clarify your innovation before presenting this idea to others. The toolkit consists of thought-provoking questions that encourage deep contemplation. You can download this toolkit and put sticky notes on the toolkit collaboratively with your colleagues.
What service do you provide and the original innovation provide?
Who are the core stakeholders in your business? Are there any specific differences you find?
What do you need to make the service happen? What are the differences and what do you need to do differently to the differences?
What is our way to generate revenue? What are the differences and what do you need to do differently to the differences?
Toolkit for transplanted innovationSurely, having clear answers to certain questions does not guarantee the success of a business. However, it is a crucial step in the innovation process that allows you to think seriously about your innovation and understand its nature, rather than being solely driven by passion.